Modding

Publishing to Steam Workshop

Packs are published with the in-editor uploader (for project maintainers building from source):

NewStars → Workshop → Uploader

Requirements:

• Steam client running.
• Editor in Play Mode so the Steam API is initialized.

Field	Notes
Title / Description	Shown on the Workshop page.
Change note	Appears in the item's change history.
Content folder	Path to your pack root (the folder containing Icons/ and Portraits/).
Preview image	Square PNG/JPG under 1 MB, used as the Workshop thumbnail.
Visibility	Start with Private while iterating, then flip to Public when ready.
Existing item id	Leave at 0 for a first upload. The uploader fills it in after the item is created, so re-uploading updates the same item.

Subscriber experience

• Subscribing to a pack on the Steam Workshop page triggers Steam to download it.
• The game scans subscribed items at startup; late downloads also trigger an automatic rescan.
• Unsubscribing causes Steam to delete the files on disk; the content no longer appears on the next launch.

Save compatibility

Empire and species selections are stored by sprite id in the save file (the _iconName and _avatarName fields). If a player loads a save — or an empire preset — that references a custom sprite they no longer have subscribed, that slot falls back to the default placeholder and the save still loads cleanly.

Species:
  Name: Ales
  Type: Synthetic
  Preference: Arid
  _avatarName: Portrait_03_nbg    # built-in, or a subscribed custom portrait id
_iconName: hades-symbol           # built-in, or a subscribed custom icon id

See also

• Empire — empire creation, where custom content appears
• Saving System — how sprite ids are stored in saves
• Changelog — release history
• New Stars on Steam Workshop
• Community Discord